NZ brings back curbs

WELLINGTON/SYDNEY - New Zealand raised the COVID-19 alert level in its capital Wellington on Wednesday amid concerns that the city may have been exposed to the highly infectious Delta variant that has triggered a fresh outbreak in neighbouring Australia.

Wellington will move to the country’s ‘Alert Level 2’, one level short of a lockdown, until midnight on Sunday as a precautionary measure to curb any potential outbreak after an Australian tourist tested positive for COVID-19 on returning to Sydney from a visit to the New Zealand capital over the weekend.

“This is not a lockdown ... these are precautionary measures which will remain in place while we contact trace and test all of those we need to,” New Zealand’s COVID response minister Chris Hipkins said at a news conference in Wellington.

Under alert level 2, offices, schools and businesses can remain open but will have to maintain social distancing rules. Sport and recreation activities are allowed, subject to conditions including physical distancing, but gathering of more than 100 people will not be allowed, including at weddings, funeral and other events.

With a population of 5 million people, New Zealand is among a handful of countries that have contained the spread of COVID-19 and returned to normalcy, with the last positive case due to community transmission reported about four months ago.

New Zealand agreed to quarantine-free travel with neighbouring Australia earlier this year, as both nations had controlled the community spread of the coronavirus.